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Posts tagged ‘st. paul’

our supposed sapience
this rabbit hole venture
grandeur, alluredly postured,
vested interest paying,
found wholly bound,
tied tight in pragmatic gestures,
molded, wired twill, just there. and not.
and the poses for those trite tripe elations
on adolescent medias ubiquitous,
for social aspirations, affirmation,
fleeting, vanishing in yesterday’s yesterday.
once a thought gone for
a thousand other good thoughts gone,
nothing to where i stand nowly.
these buildings were here, they saw too.
that bridge was here on Washington Ave.
this coffee hot was not.
Nor your laugh sharp, piercing…
your ideas are great, just imagine.
your politics are not his or hers or the self-appointed’s.
something like that.
something like this.
like the sheer wind cutting under blue hue.
stained words on paper.
hard text on a page.
a fortnight’s digested and expelled intentions.
will fill a box nicely one day.
morgues aren’t like in the television shows.
you will see it soon too.
then you won’t, verily.
and i just thought i would
tell you about it in this type.
because some day i can’t.

saturday mornings could smell
like burnt eggs
and old cigars stamped out years ago,
bacon grease splatting, hiss,
dogs wet fur from the rain coming down,
a damp dusty basement clouded,
unbrushed teeth speaking true words
to loved ones about what will be donewhat we might get to,
grandma and grandpa and dad and cats in La Crescent
sitting in a wallpapered kitchen, rented out now,
pantry full, cooking bean soup on the stove,
waiting for NASCAR on sunday, those tomorrows,
and god, or the lord or heavens knows, who cares?
got to get better at it, all of it,
that smell reminds me of nothing now
and the dead and chopping wood in the forest,
and how he would show up with donuts
and his dog, in leather boots, early,
before most “hard workers” today even think about
getting up because he drove semi trucks
to where i live now, just south of us,
until in his mid-seventies,
when he first met me, 70 times my age,
and i can still smell that stuff upstairs.

under gray rain sprayed heavens
troves walked in boots and leather at the Dabbler
while leaving skinny smokers on the train
with their mountain bikes and their obsessive plans
forward to old new music and colorful tents and
pretzel necklaces and cardboard cut-outs
of Bill Murray and metal fences and Rhymesayers,
where lights up high on CHS Field, 3rd base.
they were setting the stage for warm flannel
thick beards, flowing flags, slick stickers, soft coasters,
and hips swaying and shouts and cheers, beers!
and laughs–the whole crowd, at broken glass cacophony.
we took it in in gulps and sups and breaths.
saw alcohol abused rounding the bases,
as a doppelganger and DIPA waiting in the wings,
Greenway from North Dakota, Rhombus Brewery.
and artisan everything beer from whiskey casks,told them it must be the water that makes it good.
pine wood smelled of fresh hops
and more lights, don’t water my glass sternly;
im a postmodernist who enjoy labels: i like to
reflect my makeup like rings in a tree
keep going onto one another, like language,
all the way to the bathrooms and fireworks,
attendees hiding the buns at the center of
the table in VIP–VIP doesnt get dessert.
some sort of Seinfeld joke played out here.
the beer was dessert, free t-shirt, free glass, etc.
people laughing, wedding rings, pictures
text messages, cars coming head-on
from Union Depot. more selfies. a poet ponders
walks and writes, drinks listens to a man
driving Uber perhaps tell of everyone else
using excuses, good words, especially for what
we look like–he said, in their image: gods. i watched the traffic.
i get it, like i didnt try to get here very hard…
wet rain shell, spaghetti, wife and son.
Kelly’s is like a bar in my hometown.
more of a sore throat, thank god i dont smoke.
such and such, have to go back for baseball.
such and such, good free beer, tastes like i forgot…

on a candlelit porch my wife implored, inspired and went onwhy do you care about what they think?why do you care about what they think of what you write? it has nothing to do with them, what you think or compose…
looking for spermaceti candles and fate meaning, i.

reflecting, Nantucket sent those to gather Port Royal Tomsto eat
without a thought but hunger; left virgin islands storied infernos,
thought about that and words and writing and language
on a porch serene treasure, old books, good love…
what do you think? wait, nevermind.

bubbling up, i recall her burnt hand expressing white temperatures
on clear glass, how it changes so fast and silence and police scanner siren;
dropping my whisky for a similar purpose; icing thumb: and scroll go.
watching the blue grass grow, not much to see here,
coo-coo clocks and barometers and books of ships and screens
that do keep us safe from what’s out there far away, calling a din.

our heads of dead fuses
our mouths agape true voids
a spectacle for wires
a mind melts to ash, to lava
thoughts run thin, amok
edgewise at horizons flesh
horizontal at still birth
vertical at death above a sink
eyes cutting the mirrors veneer
blood wet like new glue
mind between here and there
mostly gone anon along
and someone was something-else
as the church bells rang like a lost phone
and the doors closed tightly
to darkness and morning like
vacated loving foreign tenants
of our american times
of our american times